


Caldera

by Hollybush



Series: Deliver Me-Universe [3]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I'm not sure why I keep bringing his mother into it., I'm sure he wouldn't thank me for it, M/M, Oliver's Mother - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22870303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollybush/pseuds/Hollybush
Summary: She'd never told anyone because she knew there wouldn't be a next time. They'd said their goodbyes and then she'd been given one last hello and that was the end of it.Until it wasn't.Or: months after the events of Call Across Landmines, Oliver calls.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: Deliver Me-Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643983
Comments: 20
Kudos: 82





	Caldera

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure where this came from and I am aware that no one is probably even interested in this (anymore). I’ve been away from the fandom for a bit, but I watched the film tonight and then remembered I had some of this written in a dusty document somewhere. So I brushed off the dust, sat down and this came out of that. 
> 
> There’s a second part to this, from Oliver’s POV, that should be around somewhere. I am going to see if I can uncover it from the digital attic. 
> 
> Lastly, this probably makes very little sense if you haven’t read Call Across Landmines, but don’t feel obligated to read that first. 
> 
> CAL was sort of part of the Deliver Me universe, so if you’ve nothing better to do…

She never told anyone.

She’d sat in the driveway, stared at the front door and knew she wouldn’t tell. It was, in the story of her life, probably the most interesting thing she’d done. It was also, all things considered, the worst thing she’d done. Why was it those two were so often interlinked?

She’d fixed her make-up and straightened out her blouse and let herself imagine a scenario in which she told Herb. It hadn’t felt real enough to make it a possibility.

If she told him, if she told anyone, it would become an event. An abstract to be discussed and judged. Something to apologize and atone for. Something to be condemned for. Something to be made an example out of.

So she’d kept it.

Keeps it still. Not because she thinks it will let her go unpunished. That'll come in the end and she is ready for that, knows it’s fair. She’s in the wrong and she will face judgment when the day comes. Whatever shape it will come in, she will look it in the eye and confess her sins. But she’s not willing, today, to let it come in the shape of her husband and their community.

She knows that some things have a way of being forgotten, even if they should have been tried and judged, but this would not be one of those things. This isn’t something people discuss amongst themselves at tea time.

No, this would be something the community would band together for. She could tell anyone, could tell Herb or her sister or any of the ladies at the club, and they would no doubt be in shock at her behavior, but they would be quick to straighten her out, doling out sympathy doused in judgment and in no time at all, she would be back to her old self, her son a galaxy away and the eyes on her forever holding warnings.

And, she supposes, she would do the same in any situation. In any other situation. But this situation is, for now, hers alone. The things she knows now and will carry with her until the day she dies….They’re hers and she wants to keep them, tucked in the bottom drawer where no one will think to look but where she will always be able to find them.

It’s possessiveness and shame alike. Like a secret possession that you never tell anyone about for fear that they’ll either take it from you or mock you for it, but that you cannot make yourself part with because it’s part of you.

She does feel ashamed. Conflicted, unsure of where she stands now. Because Oliver had made his choice and in doing so, he’d forced her hand and that was that.

Until it wasn’t.

This, keeping this from those around her, those she loves….That is a choice _she_ made. Oliver had long since said goodbye. It was she who travelled miles on end for the ghost of a hello.

She knows that not telling Herb, not telling anyone, is a deliberate action on her part. She doesn’t want to tell them. It would be easier, in a way, if she did. Not easy. But easier.

She could share this and be done with the conflict because there is no doubt in the path that would follow. It’s a path she knows well, one that used to bring her comfort. Now, she can see the other path, has already taken a few steps on it. One where she doesn’t tell anyone and she gets to keep a part of Oliver with her.

Even if, _even if_ , Herb might be persuaded to listen to her reasoning, she doesn’t want to tell him. Sharing this would grant him an opinion. And she knows every single word he’ll say.

She would have said those same words to others.

She’d never fully understood people who seemed to waver, who hemmed and hawed, who let inner conflict get the upper hand. You make a choice and then you commit. It’s how she’s lived her life and got what she aimed for.

Mostly.

Even when she had felt Oliver slipping away, watched him taking small but deliberate steps away from her, from them, from their life. Even then, she’d known it was him, not her. When he’d come home one last time to tell them he had chosen Elio, she hadn’t wavered. He was the one making this choice, changing his mind, not her.

Until Elio called and she’d been in her car without thinking. She hadn’t wavered then either.

And that means something, doesn’t it. That is her crux. She knows that she is wrong here, knows it with every single thing she’s been taught and she believes it. But she can’t feel it. She can only feel relief at having seen him. At having been shown that he is alright. He is well. He is loved. He is happy.

There is sadness at that still, of course. There is anger and indignation and fear for the price he must surely pay in the end, but there is relief too.

*

The matter at hand is, she doesn’t want anyone to hear, but she also doesn’t want to _tell_ anyone, because what would she _say_?

What words would she use to explain the barrage of emotions that ambushed her at seeing Oliver in a hospital bed, at seeing Elio next to him, at staying in their son’s apartment and watching Elio play the piano, do the dishes, make her coffee.

How does she even attempt to explain that nothing feels like she believed it would. She’s blamed Oliver, condemned him, turned her back and said ‘no’ as he explained what he wanted, what he was going after. She did all she was supposed to do, and she would have kept to it and known, absolutely, that she was doing the right thing. She’d never reconsidered, never figured she might be wrong.

So how does she explain that when she looked at their life, at their dishes and their pictures and the mail on the coffee table… it didn’t feel alien? She knows it is, she believes in what she believes in, and yet…Whatever it is that she’d imagined Oliver’s life to be, it all felt so ordinary.

And Elio….does she tell Herb that, yes, she spent some days with him, and he was bright and rather talented, and kind.

_He knows an awful lot about music and history. And he knows an awful lot about our son, Herb. Did you know that Oliver likes to listen to Bach?_

It wouldn’t matter to anyone that Oliver apparently likes Bach. It would only matter that the person playing it for him is Elio.

The latter, she finds, matters less to her now than the first. It’s not something she expected, and it’s taken a lot of time and contemplation, but she is not someone to walk away from herself. She knows herself too well.

And it matters to her that Oliver likes Bach and that Elio plays it for him and that she knows this. She doesn’t want to be there for it, but she’s still grateful to know it. It matters.

So she’s kept silent. Kept her son and his life tucked away in that bottom drawer and went on with her life. She keeps it because for the first time in years, she thinks of him as her son, and not as ‘Oliver’. And she wants to keep that too.

It still hurts that she now also _knows_ that Oliver never looked back. Hurts more than ever because he so clearly does not regret the choice she has spent every single day regretting. But it’s not as vicious a pain as the one before. The one that came from not knowing him at all.

*

When she was younger and children were still a thing of the not-so-distant future, she envisioned motherhood like something that would come naturally. She would love her child, of course, and her child would love her and that eternal devotion would go without saying, because _of course_ she would love unconditionally, _of course_.

It wasn’t until Oliver hit puberty that she realized that maternal love was indeed eternal, but not unconditional, and showing it became a matter of reward and punishment.

It wasn’t until she’d seen Oliver’s life, filled with every bit of color and warmth and love he’d never shown at home, that she realized she had set those parameters herself.

She’d believed so firmly that she and Herb wanted only what was best for their son, but the last months have forced her to acknowledge that maybe it was their best they wanted for him. He’d been set up for disappointment from the start and he’d known it long before she did.

The absolute worst part is that she cannot see either side win. She still wants Oliver to come home and live the life they’d envisioned for him. She still wants him to change his mind.

So when the phone rings again on an early Monday afternoon, and Oliver greets her, the first words he’s spoken to her in years, she still hopes, just for a moment, that he’s calling to say he’s coming home.

He’s not, of course. She would have been genuinely shocked if he’d actually told her that he and Elio were no longer together. No matter how difficult she still finds it, Oliver and Elio are not a phase. Elio will be there forever, in Oliver’s life and in her mind.

*

Not once has she imagined that there might be a next time. Because as much as she likes her secret where it is, treasures the pain of it like one does a bruise that was earned, she never considered reaching out. They had said their goodbyes and then somehow she was offered a last hello and that was it. No more.

But this time it is Oliver on the phone, asking her to come to New York. For a visit.

_Elio told me….he said you stopped by. When I was in the hospital last year._

He offers directions but without giving it a second thought, she tells him she knows where he lives. She remembers from last time.

He’s silent at that for a bit.

_Okay._

He explains that she can park the car at the old school-turned-library two blocks down.

She doesn’t tell him that she already knew that too.

*

She goes. Of course she goes. This time, she’s not the least bit surprised at herself.

*

This time though, when she gets into her car and backs out the driveway, she feels the consequences settling across her shoulders. She knows what Herb will say when this eventually gets back to him, which it will, and she can picture the many frowns she will have to encounter and defend her actions to, but it's a weight she can carry for now.

She makes sure to stop by the same coffee place she did last time and to fill up on gas at the same stop. She likes the idea of this becoming a tradition, a routine that's solely hers. Not only because she does well with routines and takes comfort in establishing one, but because it makes this feel less like a spur-of-the-moment, illicit sort of trip and more like one that is ingrained, that belongs in her life. She lets herself imagine this being an annual thing, a monthly visit, anything but what it is.

_I can't this weekend, I'm visiting my son in New York, he’s a teacher, you know._

It's something her friends can say, do say, because her friends have children in other cities, other states even, that they can go visit without having to hide it. Children that are married or even divorced but their partner is of the opposite sex and they have children to prove their normalcy. No one questions you once you’ve ticked all the boxes.

_I'm visiting my son and his partner. Elio's a pianist, have I said? Studied at Juilliard._

She would love to say these things and be proud. Part of her _is_ proud. A small part yes, but there is something where there used to be nothing. She knows her son is not a bad person, would not hurt another human being, would be considered a good person by many. She has seen enough of Elio to assume the same of him. Knows there are men and women even in her own community that she could not paint such a picture of. She knows this and she _is_ proud.

But another part, larger and encompassing, is ashamed and will never let her say out loud these things she only dares whisper in the confines of her head. Yes, she is proud, but….

_But but but_

She has crossed the state line already when that _but_ almost makes her turn back around. She doesn’t, but the raging war between shame and pride turns into a tenacious headache and she has to stop the car for a good half hour while she considers the idea of going home. Oliver would be disappointed but he has been for years and he would get over it. Elio would be angry first, then disappointed as well, but he'd offer comfort with harsh thoughts in soft words and that would be that.

She doesn't and she won't, but she does know that no matter how hard she pretends, this is not a tradition that will settle. The shame she feels one way or another will only get worse and that weight she is able, willing, to carry for now will become too heavy a burden.

But she's here now, and she wants to see Oliver more than she wants to get rid of this headache.

*

Elio opens the door before she can ring the buzzer. Slips past her and takes her attention with him, up the sidewalk, as the door falls closed behind him and Oliver isn’t there.

“He’ll be down soon. How was your trip? Was the drive okay?”

She lets him distract her because it’s the best of all her options.

Oliver does come down soon after. He steps out past her, barely nodding, barely making eye contact. He would prefer a restaurant or a coffee shop, if she doesn’t mind. His tone makes it clear that it doesn’t matter if she minds, so she nods and follows slightly behind them. Elio, of course, slows his pace until he’s matching her steps. Oliver doesn’t do the same, instead looks back at them and walks a bit faster.

They don’t speak.

*

The restaurant is one that seems unsure of what it wants to be. They serve food, there is something resembling a menu, but the chairs don’t match and the service is terrible.

The coffee is excellent though and she supposes that is why they chose this. Why they might often come here.

It unnerves her that her mind comes to these conclusions, wonders about them.

Like last time, she is uncertain now of why she came, of what she thought she would gain.

*

They drank their coffees in mostly silence, Oliver picking at a pastry until Elio took it away from him. He’s gone out to the restrooms now, but he’s been gone a long time. She wonders if he left.

“He’ll be back. He needs a minute, I think. It’s intense, this. You being here. He didn’t think you’d come.”

She looks at Elio opposite her, leaning back in his seat, one hand fiddling with his napkin, the other tapping out a rhythm she doesn’t try to follow. His attention is on her though, those eyes focused on her with all their intensity.

“I told him you would.”

There is so little judgment in his face, she knows it’s there, has seen it before. It’s not that he hides it, but his focus is on other things. He has such faith in things, so much optimism. She wonders how, with the life he lives and the adversity he must encounter, living this way.

Her words hurry across the table, heavy and unchecked. She should have known she would end up here once again.

“Do you think that if you apply restrictions to your love, if you…apply conditions, really. Do you think you can still claim to love?”

She expects him to react to that, it’s such a heavy-handed question, one that she’s spent hours, days, months, agonizing over. Surely, it must startle him, but he shows no such response, just thinks for a moment, his hands still.

“Yes.”

“You do?”

He’s still looking at her, but his hands have stilled. There is no rhythm for this conversation.

“I think you could still say you love and not be lying when you say it, yes, but I think…”

She wants to let him think, gather his thoughts. He’s eloquent and he would try to soften any blow he’s about to deliver, but she doesn’t have the patience.

“What?”

He looks the table, at his hands. It makes her nervous about what’s to come but she’s reassured as well, that this conversation is unchartered terrain for both of them.

How could it not be.

“Say it out loud, Elio.”

He looks at her then, unflinchingly. He stands by the things he says, she’d known that straight away.

“I think it’s not unconditional love. And I think that…if someone doesn’t meet the conditions that would allow you to love them, then you don’t really love _them_ , you know? Like, you love the idea of them, or the specific version of them in your head, but not them as they are.”

He takes a breath, prepares himself. It must be difficult, to be the one to tell her this.

“I think that the love is real, but the person you love isn’t.”

It hurts, but not as much as she’d been bracing herself for.

She’d come to the same conclusion, hadn’t she. It feels like she’s watching a movie about herself having this conversation. Detached, like it’s not about her. And she supposed that, in a way, it isn’t.

“I don’t think that applies to you.”

She looks back up at him. She’d expected the first part, only sought confirmation, but she hadn’t expected that addition. She can feel the hope, like the bird aflutter.

He can tell, because he seems to take that as permission to continue.

“I think you love Oliver, as he is. I think that that’s what frightens you though, because you don’t want to love him.”

She feels _that_. What does he see when he looks at her. When he looks at her and then at Oliver.

_You don’t want to love him._

What would that say about her?

“Isn’t that worse?”

“Depends, I suppose.”

“On what?”

He sit forward suddenly, leans over the table. She can’t escape him now. She’s hooked in and he knows it. Whatever he’s about to say, this is what he wanted to get to.

“Would you change him, if you could? Right now, if you had the power, would you change him, change this?”

She wants to say yes, it’s on her tongue already, the words rushing forward, ready to be let out.

They come out differently.

“I would have, if you’d asked me a few months ago...”

He doesn’t say anything but she hears his response to that clear as day. He’s asking _now_.

“No”

It’s a whisper but like that shame battling shame, it’s loud in her head. Deafening.

“I’m not sure I would.”

Elio smiles at her, like he’s not surprised at all.

*

Oliver does come back eventually. He approaches with confidence, taking up more space than she’s ever seen him do. He doesn’t apologize for taking so long. Just looks at her and Elio sitting in silence and takes his coat.

The walk back is silent too, but this time Elio and Oliver walk behind her. She wants to look back and see what they look like, walking next to each other. Walking together. She’s not sure why, so she doesn’t. It would be a strange thing to do, so transparent. She knows where she’s going after all.

*

They say goodbye in front of their apartment building. She feels a pang of sadness at not having been inside, but she won’t ask. She’s not ready to ask for anything and Oliver is still enough like her to not be ready to have her ask either.

She waves back at Elio as he flashes her a smile, wriggling his fingers in a musical sort of salute and disappears inside.

She feels a pang at that too.

This moment was over too soon, slipping away never to be captured. Another piece for the drawer.

She looks at Oliver and can’t think of anything to say. So she says “goodbye, Oliver” and heads for the crossing.

“Thank you.”

She turns. This is what she came here for. Still though, she keeps silent.

“For coming here.”

“Well, I…..you called.”

“Yes. But you said…well, anyway. When Elio told me you’d actually come to see me, stayed here….”

He lets the sentence run out, to where she is supposed to pick it up.

“He’s very persuasive. I was going to book a hotel room, but…”

He looks down for a moment, then back up.

“But he’s Elio. Believe me, I know how that must’ve gone. Still….you did stay. And ate takeaway, although I’m still not sure he’s not lying about that.”

She appreciates the attempt at lightheartedness more than she would ever say.

“He’s not, unfortunately. I did not care for the Papaya dog.”

When he laughs at that, more at the image involving Elio than at anything she said, she’s sure, it startles her. He hasn’t laughed at, with or near her in so long, she can’t even remember it. For a moment, that realization makes her breath stop, her heart clenching. She can’t remember a single true smile from him over the age of about 12. Not one.

He clears his throat and her heart beats on.

He moves to the door, fishes the key out of his pocket. This is the home that he returns to and she’s not a part of it.

She hopes, and she knows there will be a price to pay for that hope, that she gets another chance. Another invite. A _next time_.

She wants to see their house with them in it. The image that pops up makes her stomach clench a bit, her head hurt, but there’s a satisfying edge to it.

She cannot leave it at this. If there never is another chance, if until next time isn’t in her future, then she has to say this.

“Elio…”

She can practically feel him tense up at Elio’s name out of her mouth.

Slippery ice but she’ll tread carefully. Strangely, she feels safe upon it because she’s spent time with Elio. She knows a version of Elio that Oliver wasn’t there for. They’ve established something that was built around but without Oliver and it gives her something to hold onto, like she has a right to talk about him.

“He’s quite something.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She doesn’t take the bait. It helps that this…this he gets from her.

“I mean that he is quite remarkable.”

“What??”

“I don’t think I have ever met anybody like him before. He’s …ah…He is a lot of things but most of those things are good.”

There’s a flash of something, surprise maybe, but it’s gone as fast as it came and in its place is determination.

“Yes.”

“I just wanted to say that…I wanted you to know that I think I see what drew you to him.”

The surprise flashes again and this time it lingers. There’s a hardness to it, though, something immovable.

“I don’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t think you’d ever even meet him, let alone like him.”

That she understands at least.

“I didn’t expect either of those either.”

He lifts his chin, stares at her, like whatever he is about to say is meant to do something.

“So you like him?”

She wonders if the answer matters, would ever have mattered. She supposes it doesn’t to her, not anymore.

“I do.”

“He likes you too.”

“Yes, he acts that way.”

“Elio doesn’t act.”

A laugh bursts out of him then that makes her hurt and his face, for a second, is completely open, his love for Elio clear for anyone to see.

“Actually, scratch that, he acts all the time, but he wouldn’t about you.”

“I think….I will take that as a compliment.”

“You should.”

She nods. She can feel a fraction of a smile tugging at her lips. She hasn’t properly smiled in a long time either.

She straightens her shoulders and looks up at him. He’s so beautiful, always was. Always was, but more so now. More so here.

“I think you are your best self, here, with Elio. And I would not take that from you, Oliver. Not anymore.”

He blinks but shows no other reaction.

“You’ve changed.”

Yes. It will prove to be a problem soon enough.

“I know.”

“When did that happen?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think it really matters.”

She looks at him, her question sincere.

“Does it?”

There’s a very small glimpse of a smile on his face now, one that resembles hers. She used to be so proud of that. She’s glad that she still is.

“No, it doesn’t.”

*

The driveway looks no different, the front door is the same. She stares at her face in the rear view mirror and doesn’t reapply her make-up. The wrinkles in her clothes cannot be smoothed away.

If anyone asks, if they do, maybe she will tell them she was visiting her son. He lives in New York. He’s a teacher.

He’s very happy.

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. You're a treasure. 
> 
> I want them to have their happy ending and have spent too many hours trying to give them my version of that, but I know there is an official Aciman sequel now. I haven’t read it and I don’t know if I should. Anyone care to spoil it for me?


End file.
